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Invictus, by William Ernest Henley, one of the most inspiring poems I’ve ever read. The effect this poem has on me is much more profound today than the first time I read it as a teen ager. I suppose the older we get, and the more experiences we have lived, the more capable we are to understanding the real meaning the poet had in mind at the time he wrote the poem. It is great to be reminded once in a while how resilient and capable we are as human beings under any circumstance or condition.

The reason for posting this poem today is solely to help empower you, to remind you that nothing is as bad as it seems and that you have the power to change any circumstance you may find yourself in right now or in the future.

If failure has brought you down, just know that failure is a state of mind, it is not real. You may have temporary setbacks but that is all they are, setbacks and they are just temporal.

Let your real personality show, let your resiliency motivate you, know you are your own master and that everything is within your reach. You just need to believe in yourself and move forward with out any doubt.

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How you spend your time says a lot about you. You might think that a person who organizes and schedules his or her day might be a bit eccentric. Nevertheless, that person might just have a different appreciation than yours with regards to the value of his or her time. The threshold that determines what is or is not worth your time is just another characteristic that differentiates you from other people. It is common knowledge that nobody ever gets back any time and that it is always running out. It would be reasonable to say then that you need to take a good look at where your threshold stands with regards to what is and is not worth your time. This should be done with a “critical eye” and really commit to respecting your time according to where ever your particular threshold might be.

Just to exemplify this notion with a simple topic, let me ask you: have you ever thought about how much time you have spent watching TV in your lifetime? Furthermore, think about how much time you have spent flipping channels in order to find a program that appeal to you. If you use the TV as a primary way of in-home entertainment, you must realize that you don´t really have control over what you watch. Yes, I know pay-per-view exists and that there are hundreds of available channels. Nevertheless, most of these are scheduled programs. In this case, you are the one that has to adapt to them and not the other way around.

With the advancement in technology, the growth of the internet and the improvement of bandwidth in the average home, you now have a true option to TV where you can pick and choose the content you feel like watching, reading or even listening too. For example, Youtube has been around for a little more than 10 years now and it is the second most used search engine just behind google, its parent company. In YouTube, you can watch just about everything and learn how to do an assortment of different things. What is more remarkable now is the level of quality of video and audio you are capable of receiving in anything from your home flat screen TV all the way to your cell phone. Youtube is now offering 8k video. This is so advanced that most TV and electronic devices are not even ready to fully take advantage of this resolution.

Netflix is another great example of how you can use your time better as per entertainment at home is concerned. You can watch a movie or a TV series of your choosing (not the latest ones unfortunately, yet) in your own schedule and not waste any time flipping channels.

Now you have options, at least with respect to how you spend your time entertaining yourself at home with. This helps you use your time better. You can now satisfy your at home entertainment needs in a more efficient and effective way. In turn, you have respected your valuable time which you can now utilize for other important things.

Humans have come a long way with regards to options. Options relate to freedom. Freedom is one of your basic (non-biological) needs. Available time is freedom. Therefore, the more available time you have, the better-off you are. And time is of the essence, you don´t get it back, protect your time at all costs and invest anyremaining time on yourself.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain

I was doing some web surfing last night and stumbled upon this family’s plan for the next 6 + years. The Meretniemi family, a young couple and their 3 kids from Finland, are planning on circumnavigating the world on a sailboat for the next 75 months. They plan to visit 75 countries and their adventure is planned to start by mid 2016.

What I love about their plan is the spirit of adventure, thinking outside the box and really living life under their own terms. Shouldn’t we all look at life from a similar perspective where we actually follow our dreams? And from a business perspective, shouldn’t we all work every day towards accumulating the means that will permit us to fulfill our dreams and not just making it through retirement?

For a couple of weeks now, our company has been undergoing an effort to regain the trust of some of our clients. A couple of mistakes were made in the past that have negatively affected a specific group of client´s perception towards our brand. These mistakes were not made intentionally; nevertheless, actions needed to be taken and leadership needed to be the protagonist of this effort.

Mistakes will happen over time in any company, this is inevitable. As a leader of your company, you should focus on creating controls, within a system, that mitigate the possibility of these mistakes ever happening. But, in the event of any of these mistakes ever happening, actions like: assuming responsibility, the speed with which you´re company addresses the issue, the proposed plan to fix the issue and the plan after the issue has been solved will determine whether your company will eventually increase brand loyalty by your customers or lose them for good.

Step 1. Stepping up to the plate

Facing a scandal can be a challenging task for any company´s leadership. Not facing the scandal will surely make it an even more challenging task later on. What the affected clients need to see is someone taking the leadership role to explain, apologize, and fix the issue at hand. This effort needs to be transparent and most importantly, with the client´s perspective in mind. How has your company affected them? Who will assume the role of fixing it? What is your client going through? What does your client expect from your customer service? Be empathetic and place yourself in the “client´s shoes”.

Be forthright and honest. Your clients can understand a mistake. That´s not to say they will accept it and stay with you as a client. What they will not understand or accept is dishonesty. Being dishonest or non-transparent will surely lead to eventually loosing those clients.

Step 2. Speed to respond

As soon as the company is aware of the issue, it is imperative that the company´s leadership gather all the facts available and release a communication statement to the affected clients as soon as possible. The underlying idea here is to transmit to the affected clients the company’s intention to be transparent about the issue and to assume the leadership role in order to resolve the issue.

Back in 2007, a Virgin train services from London to Glasgow derailed at 95 mph. As a result of the derailment, one passenger lost her life and 5 others were injured. As a result of this, Richard Brandson, Virgin founder, drove all night from a ski resort to get to the nearest airport so he could fly to the scene of the accident. “I think that anybody who runs a company, if there is an incident like that, it´s absolutely essential that they drop everything and they go to the scene” Branson told Inc. in an interview later on. He also spoke about the importance of caring for those affected by the incident and to show support during those hard times.

Step 3. The Fix

How does your company intend to resolve the problem? This is the proposed solution after the fact. Here is where your intentions need to become actions. These actions need to address the issue at hand and to do so within the stipulated time and within stipulated depth. Your clients should be informed all throughout the process, from start to finish. This is where your company becomes part of the solution and incrementally distances itself from only being part of the problem.

Make sure that any promise your company made to your clients in this stage is kept.

Step 4. Preventive measures

How does your company plan to mitigate the possibility of this problem ever happening again? After all the dust has settled and every fire is put out, communicating your action plan to mitigate this problem from ever happening again is a must. Your clients will not want to go through this ever again and they need to know how you’re making sure they won’t need too.

Additionally, this is the time to release a positive public relation´s campaign where the company´s image is restored and where both the company and its clients can start focusing on the future.

The relationship stablished with clients is everything. You must adhere to what your company offered at the beginning of the relationship and try to improve upon it, never the other way around.

So the next time you´re company is faced with a public relations scandal or a failure to meet your client´s expectations with regards to either your services or your products, keep in mind that the most important issue here is coming through for your client and effectively fixing the issue. At the end, all of us as clients understand that things might happen, but the ways your company deals with these matters are what eventually differentiates the regular companies from the awesome ones.

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. They are Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you´re keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four Balls – Family, Health, Friends and Spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for it.

Work efficiently during office hours and leave on time. Give the required time to your family, friends & have proper rest.

As I´m getting back to the office from a week long holiday, the importance of correctly balancing work and personal life is fresh in my mind. You see, I just spent a week worth of quality time with both of my sons for Easter holiday. We went by ourselves to the beach and left both my wife and newborn baby girl at home. The new born baby girl is not quite ready to travel yet so my wife and I decided this would be a great opportunity for the boys of the house to bond.

As I prepared to take my 3 and 6 year old boys to the beach by myself, I started to realize a couple of things.

The first thing I realized was that I had never taken them on a trip this long by myself before. It all sounded very simple as an idea but when I started to look into the details, it got quite complicated. I don´t know if I over packed for the what- ifs scenarios. If I did in fact over packed, this just gave both my wife and my self some peace of mind so that was fine. From clothes to toys, food, drinks, and all the first aid and medicines, the trunk in my 4Runner got filled up pretty quickly.

The second realization I came too as I prepared for the trip was that I would probably end up spending a great deal of my time looking out for them, cooking, cleaning, washing dishes and putting them to sleep. For this reason, I did not take anything but my Kindle to have some distraction for myself. I certainly did not take any work with me as I knew I would not have any time to tackle it, but more importantly, my kids, my relationship with them and myself deserved uninterrupted father and son’s time without any work in sight.

And my third, and most important, realization before the trip would take place was the great opportunity I had just ahead of me to enjoy spending time with both my sons. We would be able to bond, play and really listen to each other. I realized the great gift I´ve been given to have them, for them to have me, and for all of us to have the time to be together getting to know each other better and being able to play and goof around. It actually took me back when I used to play with my father and the great memories this brought to mind. I hope my kid´s memories will include remembering the good times with dad at the beach. I also hope they will transmit the importance of spending quality time with family to their own future kids.

Now that I´m back at the office, having had a great time these past couple of days, I feel like I want more of it. I don´t want more of it because it’s easy, because it’s not, but because it´s meaningful. It´s meaningful to my boys as it is to me.

During this trip, I enjoyed sharing time with them, appreciating how much they have learned at school and at home, how open their minds were to new ideas, how wanting to experience new things was a welcomed thing to them, and how they were completely transparent with their emotions, crying, yelling or dancing in the middle of a beach if they felt like doing so. It rejuvenated my soul to play with them. I felt like a kid again. It was humbling to see the miracle of life develop and grow right in front of my eyes. I get emotional just realizing all of this right now.

These are the moments we should all seek to replicate as much as possible; these are the things that really matter. These are the memories that never die. These memories are eternal. Stop and realize this now as later might just be too late.

To my sons:

Thank you my sons for sharing this time with me, for taking me as I am, for your unconditional love to me, for your trust in me. I will always love you and look after you. I will always try to be the best possible father to you. I wish you become better than me in every single aspect of life. I wish you become real men. And by real men I mean that you are able to appreciate and be grateful for being alive, having a family, having a wife that loves you and that you love back, believing in something, having dreams and being brave enough to work towards reaching them.

My sons, I love you both. I am the luckiest man on earth for having you. You, your baby sister and your mom have made me complete. I look forward to all the adventures we´ll share together in the future, I can´t wait.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. (the alarm clock sounds after having been snoozed for 5 times already) Crap! I over slept again! Oh my God, I´m gonna be late for my own presentation. My boss is gonna kill me. Am I forgetting something… where the hell are my car keys? …no, I´m not gonna have any breakfast, there´s no time, I´ll pick up something to eat right after my presentation. Uhhhh my stomach is growling. I hope I get there in time, Crap!

Haven´t we all been there a couple of times in our lives? This could actually be a typical scenario for a couple of us who can´t stop watching the next episode of our favorite series in Netflix way past our bedtime the night before. I know this was true for me back when I watched Dexter.

What kind of results should we expect from a day that starts like this? Should we expect to have everything turn out right for us when we start the process wrong? Should we expect to be calm, happy, not stressed out, organized, have time to plan ahead or to be successful? Or should we expect the opposite results?

It should come out as no surprise to us that by starting something wrong, it should finish wrong. Amazingly, some people lack the ability to see this and in turn complain about traffic, being tired, or something else. Nothing is their fault, it´s always something else responsible for them being late, ill-prepared in life or un-successful as a whole.

Experiencing these sorts of things is just a matter of discipline, or lack thereof. So in order to obtain better results from our day, live a better quality of life, not being stressed out and becoming a highly effective person, we need to set ourselves up for success at the very start of the process as this will provide us with the best chances of producing our desired results.

For the next 3 months, get out of your comfort zone and follow these 10 simple steps and start seeing for yourself how small changes every morning can result in huge benefits in your life.

Step 1, It always starts the night before

How many hours of sleep does your body need to feel rested and to wake up on its own? Well, that varies from person to person but as a rule of thumb, plan for a 7 hour sleep every day. If you know you’re getting up at 5:00 am, plan to be asleep at 10:00 pm the night before. Just as in takeoff, when the steward says turn off all portable, (or in this case could be non-portable) electronic devices, do this at least 1 hour before going to sleep. This will reduce or slow down your cognitive stimulation preparing you for sleep. If you would like to read more about this topic, check out Power Down for Better sleep from WebMD.

One common trait among highly successful people is that they wake up early. At 5:00 am, it is quiet; the sun has yet to come up (in most locations) and you should have time for yourself.

Step 3, Drink a glass of water

Most of the people live their life dehydrated so waking up dehydrated should come as no surprise. We all wake up dehydrated. After all, we just spent 7 hours without drinking any water. Not only did our body worked on many different processes that require water during our sleep but we also lost much of our water content through our breath. Have a glass of water right after you wake up and start rehydrating yourself.

Step 4, Meditate

Meditation has been known for centuries to have profound effects in humans. The benefits of meditating everyday are immeasurable. It is a shame that our culture does not promote or utilize meditation as a way of life. Nevertheless, as people become more aware of their emotional state, meditation becomes an invaluable resource for self-control and self-improvement.

Now a day, it is really simple to start learning how to meditate. Really cool technology such as Muse, which helps train your brain to meditate and actually provides you with stats that track your development through their app at choosemuse.com, or simple apps such as Headspace (headspace.com), should make starting meditation really simple for you.

Step 5, Read something positive

This could be something as short as a quote or as long as a couple of chapters on the latest personal development book your reading. The important thing is to set the tone for the day. Do not start with negative information such as the news. Who wants to prime their day by reading the latest war story? Start the day with inspiration.

Step 6, Affirmations and being grateful

Program yourself with positive affirmations. Say them out loud. Have you ever heard that whenever you call yourself some negative remark, your subconscious will actually start believing it? Well, use the same logic but for the opposite result. Call yourself positive remarks so your subconscious will actually start believing them. You can start by saying I am _____ and fill in the blank with a positive remark. For example, I am capable, I am a good father, I am smart. You can also use the variations I can and I will.

Also, take a couple of seconds to acknowledge things you are grateful for. As you do this, you will stop thinking about things you are not, things you don´t have or feeling pity for yourself.

Step 7, Stretch and Exercise

Kick-start your metabolism. First, start by stretching, even better if you do yoga. After a quick stretch, get your metabolism going by either having a full workout or at least doing a couple of jumping jacks, sit-ups, squats and pushups.

Step 8, Bathroom routine

Take care of your toilet needs at this point. Better to do it in your bathroom than anywhere else.

Have a cold shower. The benefits of showering with cold water are plenty. According to Medical Daily, benefits such as increased alertness and stimulating weight loss can be had by turning the H knob in your shower completely off. This might take you some time to get used to but eventually, it will be second nature to you.

Step 9, Eat a healthy breakfast

This goes without saying. You need to be well fed, with nutritious, hi energy foods, in order to have the fuel you need to correctly start the day. Having eaten a healthy breakfast should also keep you from feeling like you have an empty stomach which in turn might cause you to eat junk food in between meals. Try making eggs. This should not take much of your time to cook or eat and they should keep your stomach satisfied and your body healthy. Avoid sugary drinks, not only at breakfast but during the day. Drink water.

Step 10, Plan getting to work 10 minutes early

Having 10 minutes to spare will give you the peace of mind in case some unexpected event happens on your way to work. When you get to work 10 minutes early, this gives you time to get organized, plan your day and your boss will appreciate it. All of these things should make your work more enjoyable, and less stressful.

So, give these steps a chance, be consistent with them through these next few couple of months. Getting organized, working on your discipline, acquiring new habits and having start your day correctly can´t harm you, they can only improve your life.